Act Like Ya Know

Security officers are few and far between around the campus. I mean, we aren’t the only employees who have suffered heavily from nearly a dozen rounds of deep job cuts over the past couple of years. Subcontractors, material suppliers, and even some specialized vendors have also been eliminated due to Bill and Dave’s off shoring to Asia. It’s a trickle down effect in that aspect. Before all the Stateside downsizing security was very tight at all of our divisions. Guard shacks were manned 24 hours a day seven days a week at each site’s main entrances. As a visitor you had to get a pass from the guard shack just to show up in the main lobby. Employees also were required to stop briefly to show ID before going through. After hours other entrances leading into a factory campus were closed tight with barriers and gates blocking the way in. During one of the initial rounds of layoffs the company that provided security services to a number of divisions in my local area were drastically diminshed and then eliminated altogether. Another company took over, I assume at a much lower cost. They provided a skeleton crew of unmotivated minimum wage workers who never once set foot in a guard shack and seemed content to sit in the security command center bullshitting about nothing. You get what you pay for.

Meanwhile dozens of motion sensitive cameras fed back high resolution video to banks of monitors in the command center that nobody was paying attention to. I learned security only retained video feeds from site cameras for thirty days. After that they were erased.

None of this went unnoticed. I watched them carefully over a long period of time. I concluded the only thing these new security officers were doing daily was walking around at the same time each shift scanning in with a sensor at a tiny wall mounted pad in each building. More than likely it was simply for insurance purposes. If someone had a heart attack or shit caught on fire the company could go back to it’s records and prove security resources were on the job. At least in theory, anyway.

A plan had been forming in my mind for getting off-site with that Signal Generator. Even though the box was made from non-asset material and tested by one of our department technicians on his own time, I knew if I got caught walking through the gates with it the company would consider it theft. They were looking for any and every excuse to fire employees no matter how petty or insignificant the crimes were. For every worker fired the company was one body closer to reaching it’s next attrition goal and it didn’t have to pay out another lucrative severance package. I did not want to get myself busted down by a lackadaisical security man while walking out with a piece of test gear under my arm.

Many years ago I saw a television interview with a gangster rapmaster. I forget which homey-G thug it was although I vaguely think it may have been Ice-T. Anyway, this criminal from the ‘hood was talking about his method for robbing jewelery stores. What he’d do was, he’d walk into the store during daylight hours pretending to be a customer. He explained that it was easy shit to chat up people working behind the counter to make them feel comfortable. As soon as they were at ease someone else would engage the employees so they were distracted. Then he’d walk behind the counter and begin scooping shit out of the cases into a bag or whatever and walk right out the front door. When asked if he was fearful about having another employee discover him behind the counters, or concerned if another customer came in off the street he would simply “Act like he knew.” Like he was supposed to be there all along.

I have an instrument bag. It is designed to carry up to a one hundred pound piece of gear. We have them made with the company logo plastered all over them just like tons of other accessories for our products. You can use a strap handle to carry it like a suitcase or you can unzip a pocket to reveal two wide shoulder straps and turn it into a backpack. Frequently I used to deliver instruments between factory locations. It wasn’t uncommon to see me on camera coming and going throughout the week, entering gates and leaving a few hours later with a full instrument bag slung over my back. Occasionally the bulky over sized dimensions of a new product and the instrument’s tiring weight caused me to hasten my foot steps just to get the trip over with. Sometimes playing delivery boy for the research and development labs really sucked.

What I decided to do to get my ghetto scrapped Sig Gen out of the department and off-site was load it into the instrument bag and walk right through the main gate under plain view of cameras. Throw the box in the trunk of my car and drive away like I normally would. Act like I know. If I saw a security officer along my path I’d just continue onward as if it was business as usual. Nothing different or extraordinary, maybe I would even say hello as I passed by and wave. Reasoning that only a nosey housewife would be that curious or bored to ask about the contents of the bag I felt more confident making my escape.